How it works

KIplatz is an AI without the cloud and runs in three places: on your device, on our server in Vienna and with the other members. Here you can read what lies where and which way a question takes.

On your PC

The program is a window like a chat. In it are your conversations, files and images, your memory, your skills and your settings. None of it leaves the PC unless you send a question.

If your PC has a graphics card with 6 GB or more, the AI runs right there: a freely licensed model that is downloaded once and then answers even without internet.

The server in Vienna

It is the coordinator, not a data centre. It passes questions from a phone or from a busy PC on to a free one, keeps the shared knowledge with an expiry date, hands out work and checks the results. It also counts the daily tally and delivers updates.

It stores no conversations and knows no names, only device IDs. If you fetch a file from the PC at home to your phone while out and about, it passes the file on encrypted without being able to read it, and deletes it after pickup. How that works is described under Your files from anywhere.

With the members

A switched-on PC with nothing to do fetches work from Vienna: preparing sections so the search can find them, writing summaries, checking the work of another device, fetching weather and headlines in the morning. If it is strong enough, it answers questions from other members. It does not learn who asked.

The shared storage also lives there, in slices, each one three times over and with a checksum. What yours does there exactly and how you slow it down is described under What your PC does.

One strong PC for the whole house

If you have a strong PC and a weak notebook, you pair the two like a TV with its remote control. You find it under “Einstellungen” (settings) in the area “Für Bastler: KIplatz im Heimnetz” (for tinkerers: KIplatz in your home network).

1. On the strong PC, click “Im Heimnetz anbieten” (offer in the home network) and then “Gerät koppeln” (pair a device). It shows its device name and a code.
2. Type both in on the notebook and click “Koppeln” (pair).
3. On the notebook, under “Wer beantwortet deine Fragen?” (who answers your questions?), choose the line “Das andere Gerät” (the other device).

After that, the PC answers the notebook's questions over the home network, encrypted, without a detour via Vienna and without anything leaving the house.

The way of a question

1. You type or speak the question into the window or on the phone page.
2. The program looks for matching extracts in the shared knowledge and in your own on the device. For weather or headlines, it fetches them from the internet.
3. If your PC has a graphics card, it answers itself. Otherwise a free PC of the community takes the question, with the extracts, without your name.
4. The text comes back word by word. Underneath are the sources, and a mark after uncertain sentences.
5. The server deletes the question as soon as you have the answer.

What the marks mean and where the extracts come from is described under How the AI answers.